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Saturday, 15 February 2014

My Story - Part 3 - Things Come to a Head

Things came to a head a couple of months
later when the church was invited to participate in an annual prayer event. It
seemed like a no-brainer, yet after praying about it, both elder M and I felt
unaccountably uneasy. Elder R was overseas at the time (an increasingly regular
reality) and was happy to abide by the decision of rest of the team. Elder J,
however, was insistent we participate and after several quite painful
communications between the three of us, declared his intention of announcing
our involvement to the rest of the church that Sunday. I was beside myself by
this time!

That Sunday morning, despite being very
unwell, I dragged myself to church for a pre-service elders meeting to resolve
the impasse. Although we did manage to reach a short-term compromise position
at that meeting, it was obvious we were in serious difficulty.

Despite desperate attempts to resolve the
issues, the bullying and abuse continued. By now it was clear that elder J
wanted to be the one in charge. He considered himself to be ‘the leader’ and
elder M and I could submit or be run over. (Elder R was absent for a great deal
of this time, and even when he was around, elder J wouldn’t dream of treating
him the same way as he was afraid of R.)

Eventually, we contacted the board, told
them we were in a huge mess and asked them for their help. A meeting was set
up, but instead of addressing any of the actual realities, they met with us, told
us we were in a huge mess and said we needed help! They then said a few ‘magic words’ and declared that everything was ok!!! I walked away from that meeting
utterly shattered, unable to stop weeping, and yet no-one seemed to notice or
care. They all went out to dinner that night to congratulate themselves on a
job well done!

Of course, what I didn’t know at the time
was that it was the board members who were urging elder J to ‘step up’ and ‘take
the leadership’. So naturally they could see no problem! It’s just a pity they
didn’t think to inform his fellow elders about the changes they were trying to
impose on us.